Version 58 (modified by 12 years ago) ( diff ) | ,
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Installing Debian
Install Strategy
USB Stick
Come with a bootable USB stick with Debian Squeeze installed (as of 2010-05-25, all physical servers are being installed with squeeze and will be creating KVM virtual servers).
To create a USB installer for Debian Squeeze...
- Download boot.img.gz.
- Plug in USB stick (don't mount) - run dmesg | tail to figure out which device (e.g. sdb)
- zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/DEVICE
- mount /dev/DEVICE /mnt/
- Download netinst ISO
- Copy ISO image to /mnt/
- Download BNX drivers (optional): aptitude download firmware-bnx2x; aptitude download firmware-bnx2
- Copy the debs to /mnt/
- umount /mnt
- Done!
PXE Boot
Or, you can install using our naomi pxe install or telehouse pxe install.
Initial steps
- Plug in monitor and keyboard
- Boot machine while USB stick is inserted (or while a network cable is plugged directly into the PXE boot machine)
- Enter Bios/Setup. Specify that Bios should output to serial console and make our standard bios changes
- Ensure that server skips errors like no keyboard attached
- Reboot and select Boot Options and choose to boot to USB stick (or network)
- Choose Expert install
- For DNS servers, use:
Telehouse: 209.51.163.29 209.51.169.83 XO: 209.234.253.168
- When prompted for component to use, include all of them to be safe (but be sure to include the SSH server one)
- When given the option - choose to continue your installation via ssh - this will give you the ability to easily set and record pass phrases
Drive partioning/Disk setup
Our servers are now coming with four hot swappable disks.
The big picture is
- One approximately 512MB partition on all four disks: configured as RAID1, used as boot partition
- The rest of the space on each disk: configured as RAID10, used as encrypted disk
- Encrypted disk: used as physical volume for LVM
- Create on volume group: vg_${server_name}0
- Create standard partitions as logical volume
Details
Since we are using disks at are 2TB or bigger, we need to ensure that the partitions are created properly. Open a new ssh session and choose to switch to console.
parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt parted /dev/sda -- unit s mkpart biosboot 8192 16383 parted /dev/sda -- set 1 bios_grub on parted /dev/sda -- unit s mkpart boot 16384 1015807 parted /dev/sda -- set 2 raid on parted /dev/sda -- unit s mkpart pv 1015808 -1 parted /dev/sda -- set 3 raid on parted /dev/sdb -- mklabel gpt parted /dev/sdb -- unit s mkpart biosboot 8192 16383 parted /dev/sdb -- set 1 bios_grub on parted /dev/sdb -- unit s mkpart boot 16384 1015807 parted /dev/sdb -- set 2 raid on parted /dev/sdb -- unit s mkpart pv 1015808 -1 parted /dev/sdb -- set 3 raid on
When done, type:
parted /dev/sda -- unit s p parted /dev/sdb -- unit s p
And you should get:
0 sittingbull:~# parted /dev/sda unit s p Model: ATA Hitachi HUA72303 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 5860533168s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 8192s 16383s 8192s biosboot bios_grub 2 16384s 1015807s 999424s boot raid 3 1015808s 5860533134s 5859517327s pv 0 sittingbull:~#
You should be able to return to the graphical installer to do the rest.
For the record - here's how you can do it by hand:
RAID:
mdadm --create --raid-devices=2 --level=1 --metadata=1.0 --verbose /dev/md0 /dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2 /dev/sdd2 mdadm --create --raid-devices=4 --level=10 --metadata=1.0 --verbose /dev/md1 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3 /dev/sdc3 /dev/sdd3
Now cryptsetup:
anna-install cryptsetup-udeb cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/md1 cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/md1 md1_crypt pvcreate /dev/mapper/md1_crypt vgcreate vg_nameofserver0 /dev/mapper/md1_crypt lvcreate --name swap --size 1GB vg_nameofserver0 etc.
Choose manual partition in the Debian Installer. Then:
- Choose "Congifure software RAID" (skip step if one disk system)
- Choose "Create MD Device"
- Choose RAID1
- Number of active devices: 4
- Number of spare devices: 0
- Now select the second partition on each device.
- Click Continue. Repeat for third partition on each device but select RAID10 instead of RAID1.
- When you are done, click Finish. Now you are back at the partition menu.
- Scroll down to the raid devices (or apply straight to your partitions if it's a one disk system). Modify the 512 MB RAID device: Filesystem: ext3, mount on /boot
- Encrypt the larger, remaining device. Save passphrase in keyringer.
- Choose "Congifure LVM" (selecting the device encrypted in the previous step)
- Create a volume group called
vg_
nameofserver0
- Create logical volumes in this volume group based on your needs. Suggestions: 3GB for /, 1GB swap.
Last steps
- After returning to the main disk config menu, click on each logical volume that you create and specify how it should be formatted and mounted.
- Enter root password. Save in keyringer.
- Do not install the server package or the base package - deselect all of them.